Glass fiber insulation products are typically packaged either as flat or folded batts in bags, or as rolls of long insulation blankets. Typically, two, three, or more strips of building insulation are formed in side-by-side relationship and discharged longitudinally off the end of the production line. Each of the strips or blankets comprises a layer of compressible fibers, optionally held together by a binder and, in some instances, adhered to a facing. The insulating strip is commonly either about 16 or 24 inches wide, with the thickness of the fibrous insulating layer being at least about 3.5 inches. A lengthy roll of such a strip, capable of covering up to 75 square feet, for example, can be quite bulky if not compressed substantially during packaging. In fact, the compression during packaging should be limited only by the degree to which the fibers can return or recover substantially to the desired thickness of the layer after the package roll is opened.
Glass fiber insulation packaging machines for rolling glass fiber insulation products into rolls are of two general types. The first employs a mandrel to which the leading edge of the insulation blanket is attached for rolling up. These machines are somewhat deficient in that they typically overcompress the leading portion of the blanket, resulting in loss of recovery and insulation value. The other packaging machine is the belt roll-up machine which uses a single endless belt which forms a loop in itself located in the path of a compressible strip of insulation material being lineally moved toward the belt from the production line.
The belt roll-up machine can receive a compressible strip of insulation directly from the end of a production line. As the compressible strip is moved into the loop, the belt is moved in a manner such that the strip is rolled on itself with the facing sheet of the insulation strip, if any, facing outwardly. The belt is maintained under tension as the roll is wound so that the pressure on the roll is increased as the loop enlarges to accommodate the ever increasing diameter of the roll being packaged. The compressible strip is cut to a predetermined length on the production line and, as the trailing end of the strip is moved toward the loop, adhesive tape is applied thereto.
While the use of conventional belt roll-up machines has been successful, it has a limited ability to efficiently package insulating strips of various widths. Proper operation of the belt roll-up machine requires the total width of all the insulating strips to be substantially equal to the width of the belt. Therefore, an endless belt that is 48 inches wide may be used to efficiently package three insulating strips that are 16 inches wide or two insulating strips that are 24 inches wide. An endless belt that is 72 inches wide may be used to efficiently package three insulating strips that are 24 inches wide. In both cases, the sum of the strip widths is equal to the width of the belts. When packaging insulating strips that do not utilize the entire width of the belt, a partial width insulation strip is usually packaged along with the full-width strips. This creates waste because, after packaging, the partial width roll must be recycled as loose fill insulation or admix. For example, if two insulating strips that are 20 inches wide are being packaged on a belt roll-up machine that is 48 inches wide, an eight inch wide strip of waste will be created. Similarly, if three insulating strips that are 20 inches wide are being packaged on a belt roll-up machine that is 72 inches wide, 12 inches of waste will be created. Attempts to operate the belt roll-up with less than a full width of insulation results in telescoping. Telescoping is the condition where concentric layers of the rolled insulating strips shift laterally or axially. Telescoping complicates the wrapping of the roll product and renders the roll product difficult to stack. It is desirable to produce a roll product more efficiently and effectively while minimizing any waste or telescoping of the roll product.